~Will The Real Terrorists Please Stand up?~. Review on New York

Yash Raj Films has been struggling off late. Unimaginative remakes (bachna ae haseeno’s DDLJ plot), shoddy plots (Thoda Pyaar Thoda Bakwaas..oops sorry.. Magic) and lackluster screenplay (Tashan) is what they have been churning out. Hence, when a good script backed with a solid screenplay makes its way to YRF studio, the head honchoshave no choice but to gulp their pride and grow up from the Punjabbased love stories. Yes, this flick is not just about Star Power.. its about Story Power. Something unheard of in previous YRF films.

The movie, as all of you would know by now, is about 9/11and how it impacted New Yorkin general and its foreign immigrants in particular. The movie is not a documentary and nor is it an out and out thriller. It is a simple tale of circumstances and how they determine the choices one makes in life. The story& screenplay, as mentioned before, are brilliant. Direction and backgroundscore is astonishingly astute. Cast performances are top notch- Katrina looks extremely beautiful (her contribution in most of her movies), John is no morethe actor with a wooden expression. Neil Nitin Mukesh fits the bill of theman-stuck-at-the-crossroads to the T.

WARNING: THE REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS AHEAD, ALBEIT MINORONES.

So, deviating from the movie a little bit, what exactly defines terrorism?The term "Terrorism" comes from Latin terrere, "to frighten." The terror cimbricus was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in105BC.

Criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.

—UN Security Council Resolution

Source: Wikipedia.

I hope all of you agree with the definition above. It is not wholesome or unambiguous, but it shall suffice. Right, so what acts quantify as terrorism? Blowing up buildings with an aeroplane (9/11), shooting people at 5-star hotels (26/11) or taking people hostage aboard a plane (Air India case of1990s). But what of State controlled military personnel and teams? What happens when they become the very things they set out to destroy?

American paranoia and intolerance reaches such high levels post the 9/11 attacks that simply being a Muslim in their land meant suspicion and distrust. Thus, the FBI gains control to detain people on the basis of hunches or insufficient proof. This power is misused by them. Innocent peace-loving Muslims are thrown in torture chambers not much better than Hitler’s Auschwitz. People are stripped of their freedom, dignity, self-respect and honour. They become mere shadows of their previous selves. Doesn’t this uncontrolled aggression towards a particular religion (Islam in this case) amount to torture and dare I say it, terrorism? Whatever happened to the basic legal premise of “Innocent until proven guilty?” John Abraham suffers this unfortunate fate and when he comes out he has only thing on his mind: vengeance.

He becomes the very thing the FBI wanted to get rid of. Instead, unknowingly, the FBI may have spawned new terrorist groups with their unarguably cruel behaviour towards“suspects”. Little wonder John Abraham’s character (Sameer Shaikh) became what he became. The transformation from cool American dude to violent terrorist is courtesy external catalysts. After watching the movie, you cannot help but feel that what Sameer Shaikh does is only human. Neil Nitin Mukesh becomes yet another scapegoat of games played by the FBI to keep terrosism in check. Butwho is the real terrorist? Surely, the men blowing up buildings with bombs andkilling innocent civilians with gunfire are terrorists. But are those men any better who sadistically torture innocent citizens and snatch their right to livealife of dignity any better? These are the questions that director Kabir Khanasks of the audience in general and the world at large.

At the end of the movie, we are told that 1200 men were detained illegally by the FBI and tortured in unimaginable ways on the basis of suspicion of terrorism. As it turned out, over a thousand were not guilty ofeven the smallest charge leveled at them. The trauma that they suffered ensured that all sense of dignity and esteem had deserted them. Most couldn’t find a job or struggled to keep it due to stress.

It is an amazingly well made movie, but one I would advise only if you have the stomach for heavy duty tragic stuff. It’s a 5-star rating from me, but if you ask me if I would recommend it, I really do not know.Afterall, you leave the cinema hall feeling worse than what you felt when you entered. But it raises doubts on our schizophrenic society which is struggling to exist because of the differences in people’s colour, faith & religion. Ican recall that one line from Blood Diamond: “I look around me and wonderwhether God will ever forgive us for what we have done to each other. But then I realize that God probably left this place a long, long time ago.”

I hope it is not true and that it is not too late.